On Ferguson.

Posted on November 27, 2014 by borysSNORC

Benjamin Watson, a football player for the New Orleans Saints posted his thoughts about Ferguson on his Facebook page, and it has since gone viral. I’ve seen it reposted, and have re-read it, about three times in the last 24 hours… and to be honest, living where I do, the big ol’ mess that is Ferguson, is so far removed from our safe(r) little part of the world that much of what is happening there does not effect us at all. On top of that, being an educated middle class, white chick from the other side of the world means, I can’t possibly hope to ever fully understand the race struggles that have gripped America for generations. So I can’t speak with any authority whatsoever on what is happening there – but I do feel that this is one of the most measured and sensible responses that I have seen from anyone on the topic:

“At some point while I was playing or preparing to play Monday Night Football, the news broke about the Ferguson Decision. After trying to figure out how I felt, I decided to write it down. Here are my thoughts:

I’M ANGRY because the stories of injustice that have been passed down for generations seem to be continuing before our very eyes.

I’M FRUSTRATED, because pop culture, music and movies glorify these types of police citizen altercations and promote an invincible attitude that continues to get young men killed in real life, away from safety movie sets and music studios.

I’M FEARFUL because in the back of my mind I know that although I’m a law abiding citizen I could still be looked upon as a “threat” to those who don’t know me. So I will continue to have to go the extra mile to earn the benefit of the doubt.

I’M EMBARRASSED because the looting, violent protests, and law breaking only confirm, and in the minds of many, validate, the stereotypes and thus the inferior treatment.

I’M SAD, because another young life was lost from his family, the racial divide has widened, a community is in shambles, accusations, insensitivity hurt and hatred are boiling over, and we may never know the truth about what happened that day.

I’M SYMPATHETIC, because I wasn’t there so I don’t know exactly what happened. Maybe Darren Wilson acted within his rights and duty as an officer of the law and killed Michael Brown in self defense like any of us would in the circumstance. Now he has to fear the backlash against himself and his loved ones when he was only doing his job. What a horrible thing to endure. OR maybe he provoked Michael and ignited the series of events that led to him eventually murdering the young man to prove a point.

I’M OFFENDED, because of the insulting comments I’ve seen that are not only insensitive but dismissive to the painful experiences of others.

I’M CONFUSED, because I don’t know why it’s so hard to obey a policeman. You will not win!!! And I don’t know why some policeman abuse their power. Power is a responsibility, not a weapon to brandish and lord over the populace.

I’M INTROSPECTIVE, because sometimes I want to take “our” side without looking at the facts in situations like these. Sometimes I feel like it’s us against them. Sometimes I’m just as prejudiced as people I point fingers at. And that’s not right. How can I look at white skin and make assumptions but not want assumptions made about me? That’s not right.

I’M HOPELESS, because I’ve lived long enough to expect things like this to continue to happen. I’m not surprised and at some point my little children are going to inherit the weight of being a minority and all that it entails.

I’M HOPEFUL, because I know that while we still have race issues in America, we enjoy a much different normal than those of our parents and grandparents. I see it in my personal relationships with teammates, friends and mentors. And it’s a beautiful thing.

I’M ENCOURAGED, because ultimately the problem is not a SKIN problem, it is a SIN problem. SIN is the reason we rebel against authority. SIN is the reason we abuse our authority. SIN is the reason we are racist, prejudiced and lie to cover for our own. SIN is the reason we riot, loot and burn.

BUT I’M ENCOURAGED because God has provided a solution for sin through the his son Jesus and with it, a transformed heart and mind. One that’s capable of looking past the outward and seeing what’s truly important in every human being. The cure for the Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner tragedies is not education or exposure. It’s the Gospel. So, finally, I’M ENCOURAGED because the Gospel gives mankind hope.”

Here is the link to his Facebook page: http://tinyurl.com/oo9szxv

America – Fuck Yes and Fuck Noes!

Posted on April 9, 2014 by borysSNORC

I never thought I’d be spending three and a half months of the last ten, in the United States of America (‘Merica, fuck yeah!)… and I certainly never thought I’d be covering all four corners of the country; going as far north-west as you can get (Alaska) to as far south-east as you can go (Florida), to as far south-west (San Diego, California) as you can get to, and as far north east as you can (Maine), not to mention a whole bunch of places in between.

I went to Alaska, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, California, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, DC, Maryland, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania again, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, Massachusetts and I’ve probably forgotten some! (Illinois too, but airports don’t count!) There are lots of things I really enjoy about the US, but as per usual, there are plenty of things I don’t like too.

US – The things I like…

Food portion sizes are huge – you can often get away with sharing a meal.
They let you turn right on the red, when there’s no traffic.
Fun trying to pick accents – from the lady beside me at the MET Opera with her thick New York accent to the lazy drawn out Southern drawls.
Mardi Gras is absolutely unique and there’s nothing like it – best party ever.
American BBQ is awesome. They say ‘life is too short to eat bad BBQ’ and our favourite was at Famous Dave’s BBQ… maybe we should open a franchise in Oz!
New England is beautiful, the scenery, the architecture, the history, the lobsters (could never live there though – too bloody cold).
Parades are fun – Mardi Gras Parades, St Patricks Day Parades etc, are a lot of fun, everyone is in a party mood. Few too many marching bands, but small price to pay.
The Grand Canyon is truly incredible, I’ve been there twice now and each time it just took my breath away.
Love the political satire television shows. For a country that is largely apathetic about their politics (less than 40% of the population turns out to vote), they sure get plenty of good mileage out of beating up politicians.
The US has some of the most incredible museums and art galleries with extensive and impressive world class collections. I wish I could access them more often (Australia really feels like a cultural wasteland in comparison).

US – the things I don’t like..

Food portions sizes are huge – if we wanted to eat different things, we always ended up with way too much food.
Taxes are added after sale. The sticker price is never the price – taxes are added in at the checkout. Just add the damn taxes in and detail on the receipt how much tax was paid so people aren’t constantly forced to work out the taxes (the rate for which is different in every state!)
I hate all the beggars. I know they are often disenfranchised and/or marginalised individuals, dealing with homelessness and other major social issues. But America’s inability to look after their most vulnerable is a bigger problem than my handling a $1 to a beggar can fix.
Pennies can get fucked, they aren’t worth what it costs to make them, they take up too space in your purse and a penny buys nothing.
Dollar notes can get fucked too. You think you have plenty of money left in your wallet and then discover they’re all $1 notes… but so long as you have this tipping culture, NO ONE will ever want to get rid of them because handing over $1 coins would feel cheap.
America needs to join the Modern era and use the goddamn metric system already!
You can not get a decent cup of tea ANYWHERE. American’s love their coffee, but have no idea how to make decent tea.
Public bathrooms… I’ve had this rant before, but it still pisses me off. Locks with ‘Vacant/Engaged’ are so simple and sensible. Why aren’t they more prevalent?
An American person may be lovely, but American people are just plain rude… there is a reason why they carry on like Canadians are obtrusively polite, it’s because Americans are generally quite self involved and often, very rude.
Ditto for situational obliviousness, Americans will just stop and have their conversation taking up an entire sidewalk, or get off an escalator and come to a dead stop, not even noticing the people coming up behind them.
Roads are a disgrace, especially in the north – most highways are pitted so badly it’s like 4WDing down the freeways with potholes as big as a pitbull. Also, the four way stops are shit, no one knows who has right of way – put in some roundabouts and be done with it.
Tipping – it’s so fucked. If staff were paid a decent living wage BY THEIR EMPLOYERS, then service staff wouldn’t need to rely on the social expectation that forces the public to pay just so they have enough to live on.

Next trip… maybe Russia/Scandinavia!

Always travel with your Parking Fairy.

Posted on April 8, 2014 by borysSNORC

I don’t have a Parking Fairy, truly wish I did, but alas… I do not. I do know plenty of people who do seem to have a Parking Fairy, and I am constantly jealous of these blessed people. Mr K has a Parking Fairy – always gets that perfect park right out front at a packed event, finds money in the street to buy lunch on a day he forgets his wallet, stumbles onto the perfect widget for any given purpose with ease! I am firmly of the belief that the Parking Fairy can be a fickle bitch, but her fondness for Keith was totally working in my favour this trip, so I am totally not complaining!

15 Reasons to Travel With Mr K and His Parking Fairy

Mr K always got the cabs whenever he needed one in New Orleans. The town would be packed and people going in every direction and he always seemed to turn the right corner and flag down a cab immediately.
When it came to finding seats to watch the Mardi Gras parades, Mr K would choose a spot and it would turn out to be the best spots for seeing all the toasts and highlights.
Wandering around Bourbon Street on Fat Tuesday, and the need to pee gets the better of you… I’d be wandering around for half an hour looking for a place, but Mr K walks straight into what turns out to be the best little bar with great food and great music and we end up there for an hour!
Mr K decides that we should go to the Kennedy Space Centre and we get there and the place is half empty! No queues, no waiting, no problems… the day before however, was a madhouse.
Mr K scores a free car upgrade for our drive from New Orleans to Orlando in Florida – bye bye crappy Ford Focus, hello fancy town car.
Things go a little awry and we find ourselves running late to check in for our flight in Orlando… I get a bit panicky, but Mr K chats to the check in staff and suddenly they are putting us in expedited queues and throwing our luggage in without charging us!
Things like this never happen to me – somehow Mr K scores a spare seat between the two of us from Orlando to Washington, giving us a heap more space and comfort for the flight.
We get to Washington and find out that the Richard III run at the Folger Shakespeare has been extended. I enquire on the phone and get told that they are sold out. Mr K tries the box office and gets the last two seats in the house for our preferred night.
We find ourselves standing around in the cold outside the National Archives freezing our tits off, waiting to go in… when out of nowhere a teacher from a Kentucky school group of high achievers who have a booking come up to Mr K and offer to let us tack onto their group and jump the 45 min queue!
I have no idea how he does this – but he gets us another free car upgrade in New York, so instead of driving around in a Ford Focus, we are driving around in a VW Passat with a leather interior and all the bells and whistles (for ‘bells and whistles’ read: seat warmers, which were very much appreciated up there!).
We decide to go to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on a rainy Sunday and it seems half of Boston figure that was a good way to spend the day too. All the on street parking is taken, the parking garage is $22 for the first three hours and we go ‘eek!’. Mr K decides to do one lap and ‘lo and behold, finds *the* closest park available and it was free.
Go to check in at the Bellagio for the week, and Mr K has a chat with the reception staff resulting in a free room upgrade… from a resort room to a Spa Tower fountain and strip view room! Awesome.
For the hat trick, Mr K goes to pick up our third hire car in Las Vegas and, you guessed it, somehow manages to get us another free car upgrade from a cheap compact to a Chevrolet Impala (how does he do it!)
Then in a stunning use of the omnipresent Parking Fairy, Mr K finds a hat. Now this one needs a bit of explaining. When we were in New Orleans, he found a nice New Orleans Saints Hat that he liked in a hat shop however, it’s not in his size. Not to worry though, they have them everywhere in a chain called Lids, which are in Washington, New York, Boston, and Las Vegas and well everywhere really… but not a single one of the probably 10-12 Lids stores we try has the ‘right hat’. As we are getting ready to leave Vegas, I spy a small little sports store at the airport terminal and suggest he have a poke around to kill some time while we are waiting for our flight. Wouldn’t you know it, after weeks of looking the first racks Mr K walks over to have the hat he wants and in his size. Unbelievable.
And just to put the icing on the cake, he managed to score us four seats to ourselves on the flight on the way home so I got to lay down and try and sleep!

The moral of the story is… if you have a Parking Fairy of your own, make sure you get good use of her, and if you don’t – always travel with someone who does have one!

I Heart Las Vegas… or not.

Posted on April 8, 2014 by borysSNORC

Las Vegas – the (+)ves

It’s home to all the cool Cirque du Soleil shows. This is sufficient reason to visit IMHO! I’ve seen Mystere, Ka, and Zarkana; and now ‘O’ and Zumanity twice!
Hotels and Casinos are fabulous, they are all hyper-real and over the top, and tend to have their own interesting themes in an attempt to stand out from the pack.
There is lots of stuff going – on all the time. 24/7
Shows, restaurants and shopping choices are wide and varied and to suit every taste and budget – awesome sauce all round.
Easy gateway to the Grand Canyon, you gotta do the champagne helicopter tour thing, if you ever get the chance.
You can find more ugly carpet in Vegas than anywhere else in the entire world! It’s really quite spectacular. 🙂
There’s a oddity on every corner, from showgirls posing for photographs to cookie monsters handing out cards for hookers.
The local constabulary don’t seem to have a problem with open containers in the street, so people are walking around with yard glasses full of margaritas!
There are weddings everywhere you look… 60 yr olds in formal bridal wear on a Sunday afternoon… 20 year olds in cheap costumes wedding gear on Friday nights.
There is plenty of parking – all the casinos provide free self parking for guests, so getting around is really easy.
The Thunder from Down Under billboards make me smile every time I see them, apparently they are really quite popular with all the hens nights (sorry, bachelorette parties) that hit Vegas every weekend.
The Breakfast Red Bull Margarita is practically the State Drink.

Las Vegas – the (-)ves

CIGARETTE SMOKE indoors everywhere. It makes you feel sick. Literally.
Drunk chicks all over the place. There is little that is less becoming than well dressed, but excessively drunk woman falling down at barely 2pm in the afternoon.
Beggars are in your face where ever you look… it already feels like the entire town is trying to put their hands in your pocket, but that goes double for the beggars, hawkers and solicitors.
Weird arse dress standards – girls on the town are all in low cut, tight dresses and stupidly high heels, while the guys they are hanging out with are in daggy cargo pants and sneakers?! What’s with that?
There are signs in most bathroom warning people, not about the dangers of gambling addiction (like we have here), but instead warnings about alcohol and pregnancy… is this a bigger problem than gambling away your house here?
One step back off the strip is totally Skeezy Town, ramshackle strip clubs and tired looking streetwalkers.
Freemont Street, once a focus point is now a shit hole that attracts people willing to half strip in ridiculous outfits, to pose for photos with tourists for a $1 (think large black woman in a nuns habit with massive boobs hanging out and pasties covering her nipples… or guys dressed up with KISS make up, fake instruments, studded belts etc, and g-strings and no other items of clothing!). It’s nothing more than creative begging.

Famous Dave’s BBQ

Posted on April 7, 2014 by borysSNORC

Last day in the States and had to hunt down some BBQ to slake Mr K’s new found appetite for ribs, ribs and more ribs! Can’t blame him though, nearly every place we’ve been to has been excellent for it’s BBQ compared to what passes for American BBQ in Australia (it’s the whole Chinese food thing all over again). We found a Famous Dave’s not far from the Gun Show and sort of near the airport and it seemed like a good place to hole up for a while, and grab a decent meal before being faced with the horrors of 13 hours stuck in a plane and nothing but airline food.

Just getting out of your car near this place makes you salivate, you can smell the smoke and BBQ meats from the car park.. add to that, Happy Hour beers for $1.99 or $2.99 for a pint… and you got a lot of happy campers inside. Not a great photo – but first thing that greets you is a case full of trophies for their award winning meats, and a claim to have the ‘World’s Best Greatest Ribs’… that’s a pretty big call. 🙂

I loved the menu with the picture of a very happy porker, showing both what is inside the piggy as well as the best cuts that come off them.

Apparently this is a chain/franchised restaurant, and the decor kinda reminds you of a Hog’s Breath Cafe (without the over clutter), the red check table cloths, and the faux indoor iron patios make for an interesting ambiance, well as interesting as it gets for a place that uses license plate in their decorating! I thought their ‘Recipe Vault’ was kinda cute though. 🙂

But the decor isn’t really why you turn up – it’s all about the BBQ. We order and appetiser to share – Famous Dave’s taster platter of awesome! It contained, chicken tenders, fried catfish, naked traditional buffalo wings, onion rings and four dipping sauces from blue cheese dip to hot and spicy BBQ sauce. Delicious and plenty to share – this was just an appetiser!

Knowing full well that the appetiser was likely to pretty full on, we decided to share it, and to share a meal as well – can’t imagine how you’d fare if you ordered appetisers and a meal each! This was a 1/3 Rack of St Louis Ribs served with two sides (potato salad and mac ‘n’ cheese), and cornbread. The ribs are served rubbed and there are six different sauces of varying levels of hot, sweet, mild, chipotle etc for you to drown them in. Tasted bloody awesome!

At the end of our meal, Mr K took the time to compliment the owner/manager and next thing you know we are walking out of there with a bottle of Famous Daves most popular BBQ sauce – the Rich and Sassy, as well as a dozen little taster sachets to take home. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) Mr K had already bought FIVE bottle of various BBQ sauces to bring home as he is intending on becoming a master of the American BBQ. We are very much looking forward to sampling his efforts in the coming months. 🙂

Famous Dave’s was pretty fucking good… if you get the chance, you should check it out, and definitely try the baby back tips. Delicious!